History’s ‘Vikings’ offers manly, smart family drama

It’s not easy to explain the comfort and satisfaction visited upon viewers during the violent battles and amoral raids led by a legendary eighth-century Viking named Ragnar Lothbrok. In spite of its brutality, History’s drama series “Vikings” is (for me and I’m not sure who else) one of television’s secret masochistic pleasures.

And now the show has wisely set sail from the bloody battlefields of the Sunday-night TV wars and landed its second season on Thursday nights instead, where I bid it a hearty skoal. “Vikings” exceeds expectations, so long as those expectations aren’t up in “Game of Thrones” territory. What could be a silly exercise in quasi-historical swordplay is instead an earnest, tightly told family drama.

“Vikings” has consistently lean writing and a precise sense of what kind of show it’s trying to be – manly, intelligent, tragic; sweeping yet specific. The performances by the cast, led by Travis Fimmel as the restless explorer Ragnar (who sports the original hipster undercut), are confident and controlled.

But this isn’t entirely a mash note. “Vikings” is a technical success that nevertheless lacks wider appeal, some ineffable and deeply thematic quality that could have lured the sort of episode-by-episode talk and attention that all cable dramas crave. “Vikings” gives you a lot to look at but not much to discuss.

Perhaps that’s precisely why I enjoy watching it; I don’t feel obligated to guess where the show’s story is headed or proffer my lofty theories on its hidden context or relevance. “Vikings” is about Vikings doing what Vikings do – which is neither pretty nor inspiring.

Having ascended in the first season to the status of earl in his territory, Ragnar has brokered an uneasy truce with two other Viking rulers (one of them, King Horik, is played by Donal Logue). They agree to team up and sail west for a raid on Northumbria (England), where the gods had favored Ragnar in a previous pillage.

A storm disorients them, and the Vikings’ longships land in the Wessex realm of King Ecbert (Linus Roache), a more worthy and less vulnerable adversary than they’ve met before.

Although Ragnar’s passions lead him to the western horizon, his heart belongs home, where his second wife (Alyssa Sutherland as the vain Princess Aslaug) has borne him a new litter of sons. His true love is still Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick), the determined warrior who dumped him, taking their elder son Bjorn and winding up in a far worse marriage. Luckily, we haven’t seen the last of her.

By this season’s second episode, “Vikings” jumps ahead several years – which is bad news for the talented lad who played Bjorn but excellent news for Alexander Ludwig, who plays the strapping, all-grown-up Bjorn.

“Vikings” seems to have added more fighting and pillaging this time around – of which it already had plenty. That’s fine, I suppose, if that’s where the ratings treasure is hidden, but I still prefer the show’s intellectual side, following Ragnar’s curiosity for the culture and monotheistic religion of the communities he’s invading.